


Tonight We’ll Drink Into An Early Grave

by musiclily88



Series: Wasted Youth// There Wasn't Much to Waste [21]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Anonymous Sex, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Awkward Sexual Situations, Awkwardness, Child Abuse, Depression, Domestic Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Flashbacks, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Physical Abuse, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Abuse, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 11:19:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musiclily88/pseuds/musiclily88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Days later—probably days, perhaps nights later—Louis came to in the middle of blowing some bloke behind the bar of some nightclub he’d probably never known the name of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tonight We’ll Drink Into An Early Grave

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this took so long to update, loves. I wrote a bit of fluff and also took some time to write my dissertation proposal (UGH).
> 
> Comment, critique, insult, berate, applaud, criticize, etc.

Days later—probably days, perhaps nights later—Louis came to in the middle of blowing some bloke behind the bar of some nightclub he’d probably never known the name of.

Kneeling on the grippy mat that abutted the beer fridge, Louis felt a hand twist tightly in his hair and he groaned. His jaw felt tight but he opened his mouth wider, chancing a glance up through watering eyes. He continued working his hand at the base of this stranger’s cock, glad that even during a blackout he could still suck dick like a consummate professional.

Another yank of his hair brought Louis back to the present, back to the heavy feeling of cock on his tongue, back to the unfamiliar taste in his throat. Another yank, hard enough to pull hair from his scalp, sent him groaning again.

His vision was fuzzy, partly from the bruising force being applied to his hair and partly due to the alcohol ever-present in his bloodstream. He shut his eyes, pumping his fist up and down as he hollowed his cheeks.

The bloke fucking into Louis’ bruised, tight-lipped mouth grunted for a moment before he came, wet and hot, down Louis’ throat. He nearly choked until he remembered he should probably swallow.

The hand in his hair turned from angry to gentle, carding softly against his scalp. Louis keened before he realized he was doing it. Blinking, he pulled away, wiping vaguely at his mouth.

“Fuck.”

“Mhm,” Louis agreed, stretching out the muscles in his thighs, still kneeling.

“Look how hot you two are,” drawled a third voice from behind them. “Glad I didn’t interrupt.”

Louis whipped his head around, belatedly noticing another person had entered the room. He supposed the third bloke could have been there watching the whole thing, filming it or jacking off. When he realized the latter prospect made him feel hot, his cheeks flushed.

“Shit, Greg, you scared me.” The stranger held down a hand to help Louis to his feet before he tucked himself back into his trousers.

_Greg_ shot them both a wolf-grin, eyes bright and teeth sharp. “Sorry, babes.” He loped slowly to the bar, ghosting a hand across Louis’ shoulders before planting a kiss on the stranger’s cheek. “Nick here been treating you well, then?” he asked, finally gracing Louis with a full-on glance.

“Passing fair,” Louis responded with a shrug. “He didn’t come in my hair, innit.”

Greg laughed, tipping his head back. He hip-checked Nick, and that was the last thing Louis remembered until he woke up eight hours later.

***

He woke up with an abrupt gasp, flailing his limbs outward against his dirty sheets. His head ached and his stomach audibly roiled. He clenched his jaw, rolling into himself until his body was foetal.

“Shit.” He wrapped his arms around his belly, hearing the rasp of the wristbands on his arms as they ran against his bed sheets. His mouth felt tacky and stale, his head full of buzzing thoughts of the various was he had humiliated himself. 

_Fuck._

He lay in his bed for a full hour before opening his eyes again, his buzzing phone getting the best of him. Groaning, he pulled his head off his pillow and groped blindly for his mobile. He only realized it was still nestled inside his jeans _after_ he nearly fell off his bed. He was clearly a human disaster.

Louis stumbled to his feet and assessed the damage he had made of his own body. Two wristbands and three hand-stamps decorated his forearms. “Coulda done worse,” he mused aloud until he pressed a finger to the crease at the corner of his lips, feeling the burn that reminded him how wide he had stretched his mouth the night before.

He had no idea how he had gotten home, nor any idea what he had truly done after his memory blanked out. He stared down at his naked figure and exhaled a full-body sigh.

Louis stumbled gracelessly to his en suite bathroom, palming his cock to avoid the static in his head. After starting the water in his shower, he sat down cross-legged onto the bathmat and inhaled deeply.

He thumbed open the messages on his mobile, cringing as he saw two of them were from someone called Nick and a third was from a bloke named Greg.

The fourth was from Liam.

_I think maybeee we shuld talk yeh_

Louis bit his lip as he composed a hungover response.

_k babe when and where_ he messaged before stepping into the scalding shower, shutting his eyes against the spray.

***  
After his shower, Louis slunk down the stairs to the kitchen, craving a fry-up or at least some beans on toast.

He found Harry playing sentinel in front of the stove as soon as he entered the kitchen, and his lungs nearly dropped into his gut. “Haz.”

“Hey, Lou,” Harry replied without looking up. “You sleep okay?”

“Suppose.”

“Guest room is marvelous, let me say.”

“Right.”

“Eggs?”

“Anything.” Louis knitted his brows.

“Sure, mate.” Harry nudged at the pan in front of him, eyes insistent on the stove.

“You’re angry at me, then.”

“Not angry, really. Just—” Harry trailed off.

“Disappointed.”

“Not exactly.”

Louis grinned, sharp and harsh. “Whatever you think, kid, I’m sure I’ve done it. Alay your illusions now and get it over with. Let’s have it out.”

“Do you want an omelet?” Harry asked, voice conversational and kind.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m making myself an omelet. Would you like one?”

“Whatever’s easiest.” Louis paused. “Can I ask a really rude question?”

“Do you ask any other kind?” Harry drawled, perhaps fairly.

“What are you doing here?”

“You asked me to come pick you up last night.”

Louis nodded. “That sounds like me. Where was I?”

“Spyglass.”

“Shit, right. Right.” Louis bit his lip. “Sorry.”

“For what?” Harry’s shoulders hunched. “For which bit are you sorry?”

“Inconveniencing you.”

“That’s—not what I meant. It was fine, really. I appreciated it. Asking me, that’s better than driving drunk.”

“Fuck, even I wouldn’t do that. I’m careless, not a sociopath.”

Harry hummed, lips quirking into an angry smirk. “You’re drinking yourself to death is what you are.”

Louis laughed, the sharp noise cutting through the midafternoon calm of the kitchen. “I’m aware.”

“Yeah? You’re aware? Well then you should know it’s not fair to drag us all down with you.” Harry dropped the spatula he was holding, causing it to clatter loudly against the granite countertop. “It’s too fucking hard to watch.”

“What?” Louis went breathless, throat tight, chest seizing.

“It’s too hard to be in love with someone as hell-bent on self-destruction as you are. It’s not fair.”

“When have I ever been fair?” he said, acid coating every word. 

This was—this was everything. This was why he did what he did. He alienated people by showing them just how disgusting he was. He laid it all bare to allow people to do with him what they would. Inevitably, they left when they realized how irredeemable he was. It was a pattern he was used to.

“This isn’t _you,_ though. Not the real you.”

“You don’t know that. And anyway, you’re wrong. This is everything I am. A hungover addict with delusions of standing. Polishes up pretty, doesn’t it?” Louis set his mouth into a thin line, gesturing down at himself—mussed hair, trackie bottoms, ratty vest. He knew what he looked like. “Been waiting for you to realize it, I guess.”

“Stop saying it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like it’s—a hardship to know you.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. It’s just a hardship to watch you careen off a cliff like this. To realize you hate yourself so much that you have to drown the thing inside you that lets you feel.” Harry shrugged. “It’s never been a hardship to know _you._ The real you, I mean, not the version of you that seems really intent on dying in an alleyway behind a gay bar.”

“Hey, I called you, didn’t I?”

Harry shook his head slowly. “I called you, actually. You were kinda babbling incoherently for awhile, til you slowed down a bit. And you kept talking about how the world would be a better place without you in it. Which is just—it’s just not true.”

“Look, I—I hear you, I hear what you’re saying, and maybe even on some level I can understand it. Sort of,” Louis conceded, before pausing. “But it doesn’t feel true, and it doesn’t feel real. Okay? And my therapist would trot out the mantra, you know, _depression lies,_ that my brain isn’t telling me the truth. But it’s the only truth I know. So as far as interventions go, um, I mean, I appreciate it, but it can’t—it doesn’t change things.”

Harry turned off the stove and placed an omelet on a plate beside him, walking silently to the table to set it in front of Louis. Returning to the stove, he plated more eggs and walked to the table again, sitting down with his own food.

“Doesn’t change what?” he asked slowly, drawing out the words.

“I can’t just wake up in the morning and decide to be in a good mood. Life doesn’t work that way. Depression doesn’t work that way. It’s, shit, it’s a chemical imbalance and life patterns and fucking schemas and horrible situations and underneath it all is the knowledge that I might as well be polishing up a turd for all the good I’m going to do, trying to make this go away.” Louis dropped his gaze to the plate in front of him. “So what’s the point.”

“You used to be happier than this,” Harry murmured, eyes wide and translucent green in the afternoon light.

“No, I just used to be better at lying.”

Harry clacked his jaw, considering this. “You were the brightest thing around, you know, at St. Gabriel’s. You took chances I would never have taken. You did things I’d never seen anyone do, that I didn’t really know were—options. Hell, you were out right from the very beginning. That in and of itself was breathtaking to me. I don’t even have words for it.” He scrubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “You were kind of—my way out, my way of escaping. You helped me figure out how to become someone. You’re beautiful, you know, always have been. Bright like a spotlight.” 

Harry smiled wanly, dimples pressing into his cheeks. “I just wanted to be able to reflect back a little of that brightness, to figure out how to shine the way you did. I wanted to be a little bit like you. That’s all I wanted. To be like you at all. And maybe that’s not fair to you, or for me to put that on you. But it’s not fair what you’re doing to yourself either.”

Louis snorted loudly, gracing Harry with a stupid smile. “It’s a myth. An illusion. None of it’s real. There’s nothing here.” He waved a hand vaguely in front of his own face. “Nothing.”

“No. You’re lying. This is you lying. You’re not a bad person, babe, but you treat yourself badly.”

“Your insistence isn’t changing anything.”

“Neither is yours.” Harry shifted in his seat, tucking one long leg up beneath him, curling up into himself. “It’s easier to stay stuck in what you know than to work toward something better.”

Louis snorted, squinting at Harry angrily. “You’re not inside my head. You don’t know what this is.”

“I know,” Harry agreed. “I’m not in your head, that’s true. But I know about the lies your brain can tell you.” He heaved out a sigh. “Like. I’m not trying to one-up you, okay, but I want you to understand. I want you to understand how serious I am. Okay?”

Louis nodded slowly.

“I still get—nightmares and flashbacks and horrible panicky fits, just thinking about what he—about what Mr.—about what happened. About what he did to me. And my head keeps telling me it’s going to happen again, that the things he did were my fault, that he really is going to kill me for telling. The deepest part of me is afraid he’s right, that all I’m good for is—that. That everyone can see it on me as soon as they look at me. That I reek of it. And my dearest friends can insist again and again that it was never my fault, that I did nothing to deserve the way he brutalized me. But that dark spot deep inside me can’t hear it. Okay? So I get it, a bit, the way we lie to ourselves.”

Louis dared not interrupt, dared not do any damn thing.

“And I applaud you for seeking treatment. That’s, yeah, that’s difficult shit. But it’s not the only step, or even really the most important one. You have to actually, like, want something to change.”

“The only way I see anything changing is—just, like, dying.”

“That’s bullshit, that is. There are a thousand ways to change.”

Louis snorted again, disgust pooling in his stomach. “And I can’t even figure out one. Not one that’s worked, anyway, nothing seems to work.”

“So try something else.”

“When am I allowed to give up, then? When I’m some dried-out used-up thing, my youth too wasted to even leave an attractive corpse? My body puffed up and soggy because they found me floating in the Thames like a goddamn gay cliché?”

Harry’s face darkened, his jaw clenching shut. “Don’t—don’t joke about that right now. I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you.”

Louis sighed, rolling his eyes a bit indulgently. “I know, babe, but the only way I can deal with shit like this is by joking about it. It’s nothing personal.”

“I—last night, I thought maybe you weren’t gonna make it, that you had died in a puddle of sick in the back alley. It was proper terrifying,” Harry said shakily. “Turns out you were apparently just napping while you waited for me to show up, but shit, Lou. How long do you think you can get away with doing things like that?”

“Hopefully I won’t have to find out. Reckon someone else’ll make the decision for me someday, innit.”

“Who?” Harry scoffed. “God? The fates? Zeus himself?”

“A closeted Euro-fag who really wants to bash in the head of the nearest twink, more like.”

“It’s shitty that you’d rather look for trouble than for the love everyone is all too willing to give you. That’s a terrible thing. And you know what? You deserve better.” Harry shoved his chair away from the table, standing swiftly. “Sort it out.”

He left the room after that, leaving behind a stunned Louis and congealing eggs, kitchen glowing softly in the afternoon sunlight.

***  
Louis tripped his way up to Lottie’s bedroom, needy for something he couldn’t put a name to. He wondered if she would understand, if their similar genetics and chemistry and background could supply some insight no one else had ever been able to offer him.

He thought back to the dark lines on her arms, the scuffed-up scars and clotting blood he used to find there on the rare instances she let her guard down. Maybe Lottie would understand.

He knocked on her door and waited to hear her invite him in, half unsure where they stood with one another sometimes. He found her cross-legged on her unmade bed, flipping through a glossy-paged magazine, looking bored.

“Hey.” He sat across the room from her on the bench in front of her vanity, eyes wary.

“Hey, yourself. What’s up?” She flicked a page, eyes downcast.

“What’s—what’s wrong with me?”

She blinked up at him, brows furrowing. “I don’t follow.”

“What’s—why aren’t I fixed yet? Isn’t therapy supposed to help? Aren’t my medications supposed to have made me better by now? What’s _wrong_ with me still?”

Lottie’s face softened as she dropped the magazine. “You want the truth?” she asked softly, flicking her fringe out of her eyes. “Honest to god?”

He nodded resolutely, fisting his hands against the fabric of his trackie bottoms. “Yeah.”

“You’re a coward.”

“I—what?” he breathed, startled at her response. It was perhaps the last thing he expected her to say.

“You’re a coward,” she repeated, stating it almost apologetically, her eyes drooping. “Sorry.”

“I asked,” he responded with a shrug, pretending not to be hurt and annoyed. “Though I—can you elaborate?”

“You’re gonna get upset at me.”

“It can’t be anything worse to hear than I’ve already told myself, Lots. Okay? So just let me have it.”

She gathered in a sustaining breath, appraising him. “You want someone to fix you. You’re going through the motions of someone who’s committed to getting better, but you’re just—not. You’re not really doing anything. You’re letting yourself be static, pretending that it’s a professional’s job to fit together your pieces rather than _your_ responsibility to want to get better. It’s selfish, and it’s cowardly. You want a magic fix, and that’s never going to happen. Not if you don’t put in the work. It’s a coward’s way out.”

He swallowed, his spit gone thick and stringy, as though he might choke on all the words bubbling up in is throat. “There’s—a kind of bravery in sticking around, even though you want to die. There’s a strength, a courage in that.”

“Yeah,” she agreed darkly. “There’s even more courage in daring to be kind to yourself and put in actual effort. There’s something even braver about trying to take care of yourself so eventually, maybe, you won’t want to die at all. Having the courage to really live is a lot more gratifying than having basic stubbornness and just sticking around to spite everyone. Sticking around because you’re actually enjoying yourself is much, much braver.”

“Fuck.”

“I know where you’re coming from, really,” she added quietly, ducking her head down, eyes bright and wet. “I’m meaner to myself than anyone else has ever been.”

He pursed his lips, throat feeling raw and gritty. “Waking up every day—it’s exhausting. It’s like living with a sucking chest wound, just waiting for my heart to give out and let me collapse. I just ache for it to be done with. But—”

“But what?”

“I don’t want to do that to someone else, to have them stumble across my body and wonder. I don’t want to do that mum or you girls, to make you feel like shit. Like, life is bad enough without me adding to everyone’s fucking grief.”

Lottie exhaled softly. “You want to die easy and light, have it be someone else’s responsibility? Maybe die saving a baby from getting hit by a truck?”

“I don’t want everyone’s memory of my existence to be just—pain and dark and crap. Because that’s all I have, and I know how terrible that feels. The pain, and dark, and _crap.”_

She shrugged slightly, considering. “Yeah, there’s a lot of crap in the world. There’s a lot of _everything_ in the world. There’s a lot of nice shit too, you know. There’s a lot of things that could maybe someday make you happy, if you actually commit to working for them.”

“It’s not that easy,” he insisted, voice petulant.

“Nothing’s easy. Come to think of it, depression is especially hard. It’s kind of a day-by-day-by-day thing, more than not. Like things seem slow in the day-to-day, but I’m still better than I was five months ago, you know?”

“How?”

“I—I dunno, this time I’m actually trying? Talking with the docs about getting my meds right, being honest with my therapist, doing what she suggests even when it sounds silly. Taking care of myself. Getting sleep.” She shook her head. “I haven’t cut in weeks. That’s been the hardest thing—changing my coping mechanisms.” She curled her fingers into air-quotes, grimacing. “And sometimes it’s shit, but it’s still better than it was before. And sometimes I fuck up, but I really am trying.”

“What if I can’t do it?”

“What, you can’t try? That’s silly. Don’t take that excuse. You haven’t committed to it because it’s hard work, but that’s crap. It’s no harder than what you’re doing now, it’s just got a different outcome. And it’s okay to be terrified of something different, but really. There’s no way it can be worse than where you are now.”

“No?”

“You look half-dead, bro. I haven’t seen you sober in—actually, I don’t know how long it’s been. You barely sleep, you eat like shit, you drive like a full-on moron with head trauma. You look haunted.” She shook her head again. “Anything’s better than that.”

“I’ve got nothing to compare it to,” he argued.

“But you can dream, can’t you? About what it _might_ be like to not be miserable?”

“It’s still better than numb. Better than nothing.”

Lottie groaned, annoyed. “It’s not. You know how to do this because it’s all you really know, because you won’t unblock your ears and listen to anyone. Whereas wanting and trying to get better is going to take work, and you might even fail once or twice. And that’s going to suck too. It sucks to slip up. But in the in-between moments, there’s stuff that’s not shit.” She gave him a tiny smile, though she still looked frustrated. “I’m trying to be brave enough to be nice to myself. And sometimes that’s exhausting too.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, well.” She shrugged her slender shoulders. “Bite the bullet and give a damn about treatment for once, rather than just going because dad forced you to. You might find you get something out of it. Hell, maybe you need a different therapist or a different medication or just a fucking change. But anything’s got to be better than this, right now.” She pointed at him with one skinny finger, accusing.

He swiped a hand over his eyes. “I’m just so tired, Lots. Nothing ever goes away.”

“It does,” she argued. “It just seems like it doesn’t, yeah? But everything goes away eventually.”

“Not sure that’s a comfort.”

“Anything that lasts forever sounds pretty bad to me.”

Louis huffed and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. Somehow I thought my real issue would be more—basic than that.”

“More basic than abject fear?”

“Yeah, like. I’m irredeemable and a totally evil person. Like, I only feel bad things because I am bad. Like a bad person. At my core.” He poked himself hard in the chest for emphasis.

“Nothing so novel, I’m afraid. Just your typical human failures.” Lottie flicked her fringe out of her eyes. “I don’t actually hate you, you know. It’s just a figure of speech. In case you thought I was serious.”

“You’re my sister. I think you’re obligated to hate me a little,” he pointed out, sweeping his own hair out of his face.

“Nah, mostly I just pity the fact that I got the good hair in the family and you got that weird rodent mullet.” Lottie smirked, picking her magazine back up. “Have we talked about how that’s not okay, by the way? Because I think a discussion is in order.”

“I’m not cutting it until we end this conflict in the Middle East, Lottie, Christ. It’s like you have no knowledge of current events.”

“Excuse me? What country are we supposed to be occupying, then?”

“I don’t—Greece. It’s Greece. We’re helping out their economy. Noblesse oblige and all that.”

“So you’ve decided to, what, coat your hair in olive oil in solidarity?” She snorted, chucking her magazine at him halfheartedly. “Did you fail geography as well as history this term?”

“Yeah, blew the tutor to get full marks. It’s been my tactic for three years now.”

“And yet somehow you keep getting kicked out. Weird.”

He grabbed her magazine and set it by his foot. “What’s it feel like, then? Being the good one in the family?”

She flicked her hair again—a protective gesture, perhaps. “Makes me feel kind of invisible, actually.”

Louis ducked his chin down, lips gone thin. “Sorry, sis. Even in this family, being the problem child doesn’t mean you get attention.”

“Huh, well. Pardon me if I don’t take lessons from you, particularly not if it involves crashing cars into guardrails.”

“That was an accident,” he breathed, clenching his jaw shut over the lie.

“We both know it wasn’t.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He looked up slowly.

“Please don’t do it again,” she whispered, eyes cloudy and dark.

“Right. Um, okay, good talk, Lottie. I’ve gotta—yeah.” Louis stumbled to his feet and tripped out of the room, feeling warm and uncomfortable. “Sorry.” 

Louis shut the door behind himself quietly and nearly ran into Harry in the corridor. “Fuck,” he snapped, startled. He shuffled his feet against the soft carpeting. “Today really isn’t my day. Sorry, Haz. You scared me.”

“Sorry, babe. Did you—you all right?” Harry tipped is head to one side, peering at Louis and biting his bottom lip.

“Yeah, I was just talking with Lottie.” Louis slouched away, trying to look casual and effortless. He felt clenched. “Um, are you okay? You didn’t really eat much. Or like—did you shower?”

“I’m fine.” He peered at the lines of Harry, all sharp bones and soft dimples, topped in a sloppy shock of dark brown hair. His entire face shone sweetly even in the paling light of the corridor.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I kipped on your bed for another twenty minutes. Feel right as rain.”

“My mattress is pretty damn comfy. That’s true.”

Harry bit his bottom lip. “I just wanted to kinda wait around, to make sure you weren’t upset with me. Are you upset with me?” His voice took on a quiet, pleading tone, his eyes widening.

“I’m not upset with you.”

Harry clenched his hands together, sliding his fingers in between one another greedily. Louis dropped his gaze to Harry’s clasped fingers, noting how large his hands were. He felt detached from that information.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Louis promised wearily.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Never.” Louis pursed his lips, feeling he might as well make a permanent look of it. “Stay as long as you want.”

“Oh?” Harry’s hands unclenched, his fingers splaying across his thighs, large hands golden-tan against the black denim of his ripped jeans. Louis was suddenly and abruptly aware of the fact that they were in the hallway of his house, stupidly close to his sister’s bedroom.

Louis watched Harry’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, and he felt his own do the same as he gulped down a sarcastic response. “Sure.”

They stared at one another for a long collection of seconds, only startling apart when a loud knock sounded against the front door. Louis leaned over the railing that bordered the corridor, peering down into the high-ceilinged foyer. “If I had manners, I’d say pardon me,” he muttered, hurrying down the stairs with a short backward glance to Harry.

Harry nodded, brows knitting together. “Go on.”

Louis skipped his way down the steps, ignoring the hangover-headache lingering in his skull. He sucked in a breath as he pressed one hand to the doorknob, unlocking it and yanking it open as he exhaled.

“Liam!” he yelled before he could stop himself, before he could think of—anything, anything besides the beautiful battered boy before him.

“Hey, Lou.” Liam’s split lip dribbled blood as he spoke, wincing. This caused him to groan and press a hand to his blackened eye. “Mind if I come in?”

**Author's Note:**

> I am sorrier than you know.
> 
> tumblr: musiclily


End file.
